The Medusa Plague

Chapter Fifteen

It happened enery night on Krynn. Moonrise. Tonight, white Solinari rose first, a blindingly bright light that was quickly tinged a vague pink by the rising of red Lunitari. Moments afterward, the pinkish moonlight was muted further by the rising of the third moon, black Nuitari. People not of an evil disposition were never quite sure if Nuitari had risen, or if the sudden muting was caused by clouds scuttling in the nighttime sky.

Guerrand tilted his face and stood silent in the doorway for a moment, reading some pattern in the heavens. Though the night sky was partly cloudy, there were no clouds near white Solinari and red Lunitari to dim their light now. The mage recalled that Solinari and Lunitari's combined pink light had shone for many minutes while Wilor still lived. But the silversmith had turned to stone at the precise moment when Nuitari's black light had dimmed the glow of the other two moons. Guerrand knew he had found his clue, knew it with the certainty of a seasoned mage whose experiments had met with both failure and success. Nuitari's rising was a component in the spread of the plague. Only the evil black moon no decent person could see would cause such sickness.

Why hadn't he realized before what was so obvious now? Guerrand had needed to witness the final transformation to see the answer. Everyone thought that the end came at sunset on the third day. But, not being mages, they had looked at a symptom-the setting of the sun-rather than the cause-the rising of the moons on three successive days. The villagers couldn't know the magical influence of the heavenly bodies that were the symbols of the gods of magic.

What was still unclear to Guerrand, though, was what he could do about it. It was not the sun he needed to stop, as he'd cried to Wilor, but the rising of the moons, specifically Nuitari. Guerrand sighed and ran a hand through his long, graying hair. He might as well try to split Krynn in half as keep Nuitari from rising. He doubted even the Council of Three had the power to accomplish such a feat. The mage dropped his chin upon his palm and stared out the window.

"Guerrand?"

The mage nearly jumped from his skin. He spun about, turning eyes like saucers upon the form in the straw. Wilor was still stone, still dead. The door to the silversmith's street-front shop swung open and Bram stepped through it. His brows were furrowed with anxiety, but they eased up at the sight of his uncle.

"Thank goodness," he puffed, out of breath. Bram bent over and grabbed his knees, lungs heaving. "I've practically sprinted over every inch of Thonvil in search of you."

Alarmed, Guerrand grabbed the door frame for support. "Is it Kirah?"

"The disease is… running its course. She's still alive, resting now." Bram broke in before Guerrand could say another word. Pausing, he tilted his head and seemed only then to sense the odd stillness in the room. Bram's gaze shifted left with a jerky motion, to the man of stone, then back to Guerrand's careworn face. He had witnessed the final transformation too many times to afford the sight of the dead silversmith more emotion than sad acceptance.

"I–I'm sorry," Bram said haltingly. "Wilor once told me that you two had been friends. That's how I thought to look here for you-after I'd covered the rest of the village, that is."

Guerrand approached the man on the bed of straw. "Wilor was alone. The rest of his family died in the last couple of days. I can scarcely spare the time, but I promised to bury him in the field out back."

"I'll help you," Bram offered. He bounded in and removed the blanket from Wilor's body.

Nodding, Guerrand hefted the smith's snake legs while Bram supported the lion's share of Wilor's stone- stiff body. Together they took him through the supply door and out into the scrubby field, where potatoes had last grown. Guerrand steered them toward three freshly dug rocky mounds of dirt, and they set Wilor down.

Bram looked around, palms up. "No shovel. Wilor must have had one to dig these other graves. I'll go look." Bram swept by Guerrand on his way back to the shop.

There was a sound of thunder above their heads. As so often happened on the windswept coast, the good weather was at an abrupt end. The mage caught his nephew's arm. "There's no need," he said, squinting skyward as the first cold drops of rain fell. Murky gray clouds covered the moons. "We haven't the time to spend on digging, anyway."

Bram whirled around and stared, slack-jawed, at his uncle. "Are you saying we should just leave Wilor in the field?"

"Of course not," Guerrand snapped, distracted from searching his memory for a helpful spell. "Just stand clear." Bram watched him curiously and stepped back as Guerrand dug around in the deep pockets of his robe until his fingers settled upon the items he sought.

The mage's hand emerged holding some miniature items. The words of the spell were simple enough, inscribed on the handle of the tiny shovel he held up in his palm, next to an equally small bucket. Guerrand lowered his head in concentration, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Bram was about to question him, then thought better of it.

"Blay tongris." Instantly, the top layer of mud, then drier dirt began to fly from the ground in a steady stream as if under the paws of some invisible, burrowing creature. Although the hole was wide enough, Guerrand mentally directed the crater to lengthen to accommodate Wilor's height. When he determined it to be of sufficient size, the mage simply stopped the spell by breaking his concentration. The bucket and shovel remained, the mage knew, because the duration of the spell had not yet expired.

Bram looked impressed. Guerrand's face was flushed with success, his lower lip red because he'd been biting down on it as a focus. Together, as the rain turned from drizzle to torrent, the two men lowered the smith into the ground. Turning his attention to the newest mound of earth, Guerrand reactivated the spell and commanded a hole be dug there. The loose earth flew again and landed atop the stone body of the silversmith. When all the dirt had been replaced in the grave, Guerrand cut his concentration again and the digging stopped. None too early, either, because this time the tiny bucket and shovel disappeared from Guerrand's soft, white palm.

Guerrand regarded his nephew, blinking against the drops of rain that splashed his face. "I've discovered the plague's final component that causes victims to turn to stone."

Bram pushed wet ropes of hair back from his face. "You know how to stop it then?"

Guerrand shook his head. "I didn't say that. Come inside where it's warm and I'll tell you what I've learned." The mage gave Wilor's grave a final, farewell pat, then trudged back toward the smith's shop, Bram clumping along eagerly beside him. Mud gathered upon their boots until their feet felt as heavy as blocks of wood.

Guerrand seized the handle of a bucket full of rainwater sitting by the door, then removed his muddy boots before stepping inside. Next he stoked a fire in the hearth of the storeroom, and made two double- strength cups of Wilor's tea from the rainwater. He felt a jitteriness inside that crawled up into his throat, telling him to run all ways at once, seeking an instant solution. But he had too much to consider and no time to get the answer wrong. Kirah had less than twenty- four hours left before she, too, would turn to stone, before she, too, would be placed in the ground. Guerrand forced himself to sip the tea.

Bram took the steaming mug his uncle offered, then sat back on his haunches before the fire. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and over his head, watch- ing the mage with thready patience. If Bram had learned nothing else about this stranger of an uncle in the last days, it was that Guerrand would not be rushed.

tbe CftefcusA Plague

Guerrand pulled up a child's chair by the warmth of the flames. He wasted no time, revealing to his nephew his theory of Nuitari's damaging light.

Bram's lips were pursed in thought above his mug. "I don't understand why this black light is so important. It's not the cause, but just a trigger, isn't it?"

"I believe it's a trigger for the initial infection and all three stages and days of the plague," said Guerrand. "Exposure to Nuitari's light triggers the fever, and so on, until the final exposure turns the victims to stone."

Bram was still shaking his head. 'Then why can't we just shield everyone from the black moon's light- lower the shutters, put them underground, cover their eyes, that sort of thing?"

"I doubt seriously whether that would have any effect," said Guerrand, with a long, slow, sorry shake of his head. "Magic just doesn't function that way. Moonlight, especially, is insidious. Where magic depends on its effect, you rarely need to actually see it in order for it to work. You can even bottle it, if you know what you're doing." He shrugged, adding, "Moonlight shines on our world whether we see it or not."

Guerrand felt the need to pace while he pondered, thumbs hooked in his waist. "I'm going to have to think of a way to actually prevent the black moon from shining here."

"Can't you ask the Council of Three for help?"

Guerrand grimaced. "I've considered it. But you told them about the plague and they didn't offer to come."

"How can they turn their backs on the decimation of an entire village?"

"They're too powerful and important to concern themselves directly with anything but the welfare of the whole world." Guerrand saw Bram's continued confusion. "In their own way, they have helped Thonvil more than I would have expected, first by letting you speak with me in Bastion, and second by allowing me to return here to do what I could to save the village."

Bram nodded his understanding at last.

"It's funny," said Guerrand, struck with a new thought. "This wouldn't even be happening at Bastion. No moons shine there." The mage's expression shifted from vague musing to recognition. He snapped his fingers. "Bastion is on a two-dimensional plane and not part of Krynn, or subject to its moons."

Bram could see his uncle's face light up as his mind went to work. "So? You're not contemplating some really strange idea, like transporting everyone to Bastion, are you?"

Guerrand obviously was, because his face fell when he admitted, "I couldn't manage that magically, even if it weren't a violation of my vow to keep intruders from entering Bastion." He squinted at his nephew. "You still haven't told me what you said to persuade Par- Salian and Justarius to send you there."

"I know it may sound strange, but some magical creatures called 'tuatha dundarael' have apparently been helping me restore the gardens at the castle for some time. They gave me a coin and set me off on a path they called a faerie road." He looked far away. "It feels so long ago I can scarcely believe it myself, but it apparently impressed your Justarius and Par-Salian enough to bend the rules for me."

For a brief moment, Wilor's dying words came into Guerrand's mind, and he found himself scrutinizing Bram's face to assign hereditary features.

"What are you staring at?" Bram asked, coloring to the roots of his hair. "Did I say something wrong?"

Guerrand jerked his eyes away awkwardly. There were no answers to be found in his young nephew's face. It wouldn't do for Bram to further question the scrutiny. "I-No, you didn't say anything wrong,Bram," he hastily assured his nephew. "As a matter of fact, your thoughts are helping me a great deal."

Bram beamed. "What about sending victims someplace else on Krynn to avoid the moonlight?"

Guerrand shook his head. "Aside from being impractical to accomplish, Nuitari's light would find them eventually. No, I've got to figure out a way to prevent Nuitari from rising."

He scratched the pink scalp beneath his brown hair. "The only mages 1 know who've even come close to disrupting the course of the moons are the Council of Three. I believe I told you that after the conclave of twenty-one mages completed Bastion here on Krynn, Par-Salian, Justarius, and LaDonna combined magical energies to send the behemoth from the Prime Material Plane and compress its three dimensions to two while not altering its function…"

Guerrand's voice trailed off as an idea began to blossom behind his eyes. When Bastion was completed, the Council had to prepare it for transit to the two- dimensional demiplane where it now resided. In effect, they had to strip away one dimension. That alteration was unnoticeable, because it seemed normal in the fortress's new location.

The exterior of Bastion was covered by mystic runes, scribed by Par-Salian, LaDonna, and Justarius as the final step in the building's construction. Though he had not witnessed their inscribing, Guerrand had studied the runes often in the long months of solitude as high defender. He found their intricacies fascinating. As far as he could determine, the runes themselves provided most of the impetus for the change from three dimensions to two. It had taken the combined power of all three council members to move the structure from one plane to another, but almost any mage could have triggered the dimensional collapse, with

the runes to back him up.

Guerrand was pacing in Wilor's small back room, his demeanor growing more and more excited with each new realization. Finally, Bram had to interrupt his uncle. "What is it, Rand? You're on to something, aren't you?"

Guerrand paused for a moment with his head down, collecting the rush of thoughts before they disappeared. "Bram, you probably won't understand this, but we can make Nuitari two-dimensional-actually turn it on it's side-by transcribing the runes from Bastion to the moon. The runes are the key. We have a lot of work to do before the next moonrise, but by the grace of Lunitari we'll get it done."

"You're right," agreed Bram, his brow crinkling. "I don't understand. I didn't see any runes at Bastion, and even if they are there, how do we get them to the moon?"

"Of course you didn't see them," Guerrand said. They're magical. Half the trick of reading magic is just being able to see it. What I'm proposing here is ambitious. I'm going to need your help," he continued. "Will you do whatever I ask, no matter how strange it might sound at the time?"

"Of course," his nephew replied, "but I still don't understand what you're going to do."

'That's not your concern now," Guerrand said. "I'm going to need as many sheets of parchment, pots of ink, and good goose quills as you can find. While you're at it, tell everyone you meet to avoid the village well and drink only freshly collected rainwater. I'm guessing Lvim passed the disease through the communal source of water. If-when I succeed, the absence of Nuitari should cleanse the water of the plague." He left the stench and darkness of the death room and went back into the silversmith's shop at the front of the store.

Bram followed him, staring transfixed.

But the mage scarcely noticed him, his mind racing ahead. He spotted Wilor's large worktable. In one quick motion, Guerrand swept Wilor's tools to the floor and dragged up a stool. "This will do perfectly," he announced. "Bring everything here; this will be my work area." The mage dumped the contents of his shoulder bag onto the desk and began sorting out the few sheets of vellum and quills he carried. He looked up then and noticed Bram's gaping inactivity. "Hurry now. You have important work to do before you can get back to tending Kirah."

As if he'd snapped from a trance, Bram jolted, then jogged out the door into the darkness and rain. Guerrand shouted his name, and Bram stopped in the puddled street to peer back inside, squinting against the raindrops.

"Bring candles, too!"

Bram sprinted away down the street, splashing as he went.

Guerrand was still hunched over the table, completely absorbed in scribing illegible characters onto a sheet of parchment, when Bram returned for the fourth time with supplies. Other sheets were scattered across the workbench, mostly covered with drawings and arcane writing. Zagarus was perched on an opposite corner of the table, snoozing peacefully. Bram struggled through the doorway and plunked his heavy basket on the floor.

The noise attracted Guerrand's attention. "Oh, thank goodness you've returned," he expounded, "I was nearly out of parchment, and I've carved at least six new points on this quill." Immediately the mage began rummaging through the package, and his face brightened tenfold. He held aloft a sheaf of new parchment and a bundle of beeswax candles. "This is marvelous, Bram! Where did you find all this?"

Bram stepped to the fire to warm his hands and dry his cloak. "Leinster the scribe died three days ago, and his wife and children fled town. They left most of his things behind. I got the candles from a… a friend. I helped make them a few days ago, although it feels like months, with all that's happened."

Guerrand was already shifting fresh supplies to his worktable. "I will probably need even more parchment than this, if you can find it," he called over his shoulder. He lined up three stone vials of ink from the basket and, one by one, unstoppered them, smeared a bit of their contents between his fingers, smelled it, and even tasted one batch. His face wrinkled up in distaste.

"This ink, unfortunately, won't do," Guerrand announced sadly.

Bram cast a worried look away from the fire. "I don't know where I can find any more. Leinster made that ink himself, and anyone in the village who needed ink bought it from Leinster."

"What about at the castle?"

"The castle is closed off," Bram said, obviously embarrassed by the admission. "My mother thinks that if she bars her door securely enough, none of this will affect her. She as much as told me that if I left the safety of Castle DiThon to find you, even I would not be allowed in again."

The mountain dwarves did the same thing to their own during the Cataclysm," said Guerrand. "I can't help thinking there must be a message in the parallel somewhere."

The mage sat upon his stool and stared at the substance on his fingers. "This ink was made from

Ok CftedusA plague

dogwood bark. It doesn't have sufficient richness-it isn't substantial enough to carry magic." The mage sat for several moments, rubbing his fingertips thoughtfully. "We'll just have to make it work. Do you have any oak gall in your herb stocks?"

"I don't, even if I could get to it," Bram said. "But I'm sure I could find some in the same place I got the candles. Nahamkin has-had-an exhaustive collection."

Guerrand scooped up the three ink bottles. "Dump all this ink together. Then mix in a good, strong infusion of oak gall and some sulfate of iron." He fished in a fold of his robe and tossed a vial to Bram. "This ink doesn't have to stay black forever, but it does have to make a trip to the moon." Guerrand flashed a smile of encouragement at his perplexed nephew, then turned back to his work on the table.

Bram picked up his damp cloak and was nearly out the door when Guerrand's voice stopped him again. "Did you check on Kirah?"

Shivering against its cold wetness, the young man pulled his clammy cloak around his shoulders. "She was sleeping in fits a while ago. 1 gave her honeyed tea for energy and a fresh blanket." He grimaced. "I don't like leaving her alone. In the morning she'll begin to-" He neither needed to nor could finish the sentence.

Whittling pensively at his quill tip, Guerrand gave a grim nod. "Fetch that gall, then go sit with her. I'll be at this for the rest of the night and the better part of tomorrow's light, anyway."

Bram was surprised. "That long?"

Guerrand looked up from his work. "1 told you magic was a complicated and time-consuming business, and not all lighting fires with your finger." He looked back with great concentration to his tracings. "Now be off, or I'll miss my sunset deadline."

Properly chastised, Bram disappeared once more into the darkness, a shadow in rain-shrouded moonlight.

The moons, at least the ones Guerrand could see as he hurried from the silversmith's to Kirah's, rose before sunset. In the still-bright sky, pale Solinari looked like the bleached bones of some great beast, sucked dry of their marrow.

Guerrand tried not to dwell on the fleeting day. His task of transcribing Bastion's runes from memory had been more taxing than even he'd expected it to be; the demands on his memory were extreme as he reconstructed the intricate patterns, making subtle changes as necessary. He believed-and hoped-that he had enough time remaining to put his magical plan into operation.

Tell me again how this works, requested Zagarus, swooping low across Guerrand's path. Do you seriously expect me to carry something to the moon?

"No, Zag," replied Guerrand, "at least not all the way." The mage paused at the rear door to the bakery. Bram was upstairs with Kirah, had been through her third terrible morning of the plague. By now her limbs would be a writhing mass of snakes. Guerrand steeled himself against the shock of seeing her like that.

As Guerrand climbed the stairs, everything that had happened in the past few days seemed to focus on Kirah's life. He was the only person who could save her. If this spell worked, she would live; if it failed, she would die. His hand trembled as he reached for the door handle.

As his uncle entered the room, Bram stood, weary eves searching for a sign of hope. Guerrand was tremendously relieved to see that his nephew had pulled sacks over Kirah's limbs, although the way they bulged and twitched nearly brought up Guerrand's meager lunch.

Kirah turned, too, and watched Guerrand enter. Like Wilor, she appeared perfectly lucid, but the fever had been much harder on her than on the stout silversmith. Her cheeks were beyond sunken, her eyes hollow and dark. She opened cracked lips to utter a barely audible, "Hello, Rand." A flicker of his old, scrappy kid sister came into her pale eyes. "You'll have to excuse me for not dressing for visitors. I'm feeling all thumbs today," she managed with a weak grin, then lay still.

Guerrand's own smile held affection and sadness and a thousand other things. More than anything, though, he wanted to pick up his sister and carry her away from all this horror. He wanted to play fox and hound over heather and creeks the way they had as children. He wanted to be anywhere but in this town filled with death, pinning Kirah's life on a basketful of scribbled runes and an untried spell.

Bram cut into Guerrand's thoughts. "We haven't much time. What can I do to help?"

Guerrand quickly focused his mind. "I'll need to be outside."

"Take me along." Kirah's whisper-weak voice caught both men by surprise. She could barely raise her head from the pillow. "I don't want to be alone in here when-" Her eyes were pleading.

Bram looked to Guerrand, who motioned him toward the bed. Together they picked up the straw mattress with Kirah on it and carried it outside to beneath a tree on the edge of the green. Bram ran back to the room and fetched Guerrand's basket of papers.

The wizard picked up a sheaf of them, weighed it thoughtfully in his hands, added another sheet, then rolled and tied them with a bit of twine. To Bram he said, "Help me bundle these parchments, seven sheets at a time. Be sure to keep them in the proper order."

Bram dropped to his knees and set to work, rolling parchments.

Guerrand looked to his familiar, perched on the roof of the bakery. "You're on, Zag." The gull swooped to his master's side. Guerrand held toward him the first parchment roll, letting the gull grab the twine in his beak. "Fly this up as high as you can go. When you can't possibly get any higher and we just look like tiny dots on the ground, give the roll a toss. Then return as fast as you can for the next one."

Give it a toss? wondered the bird. You think I can throw this all the way to the moon? While I am a hooded, black- backed Ergothian gull, the-

Guerrand squeezed Zag until his breath squeaked out his beak, cutting off the gull's trademark reply. "Of course you can't throw it that far. The scroll will know where to go, and the rest of the trip will take care of itself."

With a stifled, slightly indignant "Kyeow!" Zagarus lifted off. Three pairs of eyes watched his progress as he climbed, circling round and round. The bird was nearly lost from view when a flash of orange light drew two surprised gasps. Flaming runes etched themselves across the sky, flashing until all were complete, then raced away eastward toward the darkening blue, finally disappearing behind the horizon.

Zagarus folded his wings and plummeted like a rock, arriving with a tremendous flapping tumult just moments after the last flaming sigil dissipated. He snatched another bundle without pausing and was off again, spiraling skyward.

Rolling parchments next to Bram, Guerrand explained the process: "The symbols and runes on these parchments are etching themselves on Nuitari. When that's complete, I'll trigger the spell and the moon will become two-dimensional, with its edge turned toward Krynn, like a coin on its side."

Squinting, Guerrand's gaze shifted. "Here comes Zag for the last bundle."

By now, Zagarus did not land so much as he simply slammed into the ground. I… don't know… how much longer I can do this, panted Zagarus, staggering to his feet.

Guerrand held out the bundle. "Just one more, old friend, and then you can rest for a year and eat all the fish you want."

It's a good, thing, too… because I think Nuitari is about to rise. The gull took the bundle in his mouth, stumbled down the street with wings flapping, and took off.

After watching the final batch of sigils head skyward, Bram turned back to Guerrand. "What about the moon's edge? Won't that still provide a tiny bit of light?"

Guerrand had already rolled back his sleeves and closed his eyes in concentration. "Not if the spell works properly. If Nuitari becomes truly two-dimensional, its edge will not exist in this world. If you want to worry about something, worry that the spell won't work at all; that's far more likely.

"I don't know how long I can maintain it," the mage continued, "so I'm going to cast the spell at the last possible moment, just as the sun disappears. I have to prepare now." He pressed his hands to his ears briefly, clueing Bram to stay back quietly.

As the sunlight waned, Guerrand silently repeated the words of the spell over and over with great concentration, until he felt himself no more than a black hol- lowness, like the length of a flute through which the invisible sound passed. He repeated the spell like a mantra the entire length of his mind's body, opening passages to the power and stopping the interference of others. He dared not open his eyes, lest he lose concentration. He would know without seeing if the spell worked. The mage squeezed his eyes shut more tightly, and with every clenched and tingling muscle in his body, he willed the spell to work. He'd done everything he knew how to make it happen.

Guerrand felt the mental presence of Zagarus at his side, telling him that all the scrolls had been dispatched. Guerrand pronounced the words he had been rehearsing.

"lne jutera, Irtc swobokla, jehth Ine laeranma."

A tremendous clap of thunder rattled doors and shook the ground beneath their feet like an earthquake for many moments. Guerrand's eyes flew open in alarm as he stumbled about, crashing into Bram, who was already on his knees.

"What's happening?" cried Bram, struggling to keep Kirah on her straw mattress.

But Guerrand could only shake his head mutely. What had he done with his rearranging of ancient symbols? A bolt of lightning cracked the dusky sky and zagged a path above the buildings of the village, straight to Guerrand. The bolt struck the mage full in the chest in the very instant he realized it would. To his greater surprise, there came only a slight tingling pain.

Guerrand reached up a hand to the wound, but the earth dropped away beneath him, throwing him off balance. Yet he did not tumble down but flew forward, as if all the wind in the world were at the small of his back, arching him like a bow until he thought he might snap. The skin of his face drew back from the incredible speed of his passage, exposing the outline of every tooth and bone in his head. His ears rang, and his head felt stuffed with wool.

Strangest of all, Guerrand seemed to be going somewhere in a great hurry. He was hurtling through a vast expanse of blackness broken only by tiny pinpoints of distant light. One of those points loomed larger than the rest, until its impossibly bright, blinding light was all that was ahead, choking out the blackness, burning Guerrand's eyes.

And then the breakneck ride stopped. Instantly. Guerrand was thrown to his knees, and his head snapped forward painfully. He kept his eyes shut as he crawled to his feet, one hand rubbing his neck. He was afraid to open his eyes, but curiosity won out, and he spared a glance around him.

The mage was in a room defined so only by the four crystal-clear glass walls that separated him from the vastness of blue-black space. Even the floor beneath his feet was transparent, cold glass, the view broken only by winking stars. The feeling was disorienting, as if a surface as thin as a soap bubble were all that kept him from tumbling through the heavens.

Slow-paced footsteps abruptly hammered against the glass. Guerrand's head jerked up, eyes wide. A youngish man stepped into view from the blackness of space. His jet-black hair and long black robe seemed to form from the darkness beyond the glass. Pinpoints of starlight twinkled in his eyes, set slant-wise and sly and entirely ringed with shadows. He radiated a sense of majesty, cool and unreachable. Guerrand would have dropped to his knees in supplication if he weren't already kneeling.

The aristocratic man stepped to the middle of the room, a curious smile playing about his mouth. He bent at the waist, and a chair grew beneath him, rising out of the floor like stretched, heated glass. He casually crossed his legs and raised an arm, and a table grew similarly beneath it. He appraised Guerrand with a serene visage, his eyes alighting with brief interest upon Guerrand's red robe. If not for his venerable aura, the man looked at a distance like any intelligent listener sitting at a table in an inn, with fried root vegetables and a cup of lily wine on the table before him.

"Why are you scribbling on my moon?" he asked coolly.

"Your moon?" Guerrand gasped. With a small jerk of his head, he looked all around the glass walls and noticed the dark, circular shadow that loomed taller than a cliff face. He could almost make out smaller shadows of familiar magical runes scratched upon the darker shape. Guerrand's head snapped back to the man at the table. The red-robed mage grew paler than a mushroom, when, with simple, terrible understanding, he realized he was looking at the god of dark magic himself, Nuitari.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"I–I didn't think-"

"Always dangerous for a mage," broke in Nuitari, his lips pursed in displeasure.

"I had good reason," Guerrand began again feebly.

The god smothered a yawn. "You earthbound mages always do."

"I'm not some ordinary mage playing at spellcasting," Guerrand managed. "I am one of the wizards who was chosen to man Bastion, the stronghold that defends against entrance into your Lost Citadel."

The mage dispatched Bastion with a flick of his long, tapered nails. "Do you truly believe I need your help to protect anything?"

"N-No," stuttered Guerrand. "I just thought-"

"That a position I did not bestow should grant you favor?"

"No!" exclaimed Guerrand. "I just thought it would not displease you if I prevented another mage from continuing to use the power of your moon without your leave."

Nuitari's dark-ringed eyes narrowed. "Explain."

Guerrand quickly complied, taking heart from the fact that Nuitari, drumming his nails on the glass table, seemed to seriously consider his story about Lyim.

"I knew of it, of course. But why should I care about this other mage's purpose," he posed at last, "as long as it increases the presence of my dark magic in your world?"

"But this mage was not even of the Black Robes!" exclaimed Guerrand.

The god frowned, reconsidering again. "It is somewhat distressing to have power drained without devotion paid to the proper god." He shrugged. "Still, the end result is the same." His slyly slanted eyes narrowed still further. "At least he was not scribbling on my moon."

"The inscriptions are only temporary," revealed Guerrand in his most conciliatory tone.

"You think that mitigates the fact that they are there at all, and without my permission?"

Desperate, Guerrand dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "Then I humbly ask your leave now."

'Too little, too late, don't you think?"

Guerrand looked into the god's sparkling star eyes and said gravely, "I know only that it grows late for my sister and the others whose very lives depend on me hiding the rays of your moon for this one night."

"We are between times here," Nuitari said dismissively. "It will not pass for those you left behind until- if-you return." Again he drummed his dark nails, considering some point. After staring at Guerrand's red robe briefly, he seemed to come to a conclusion.

"Perhaps it's not too late for both of us to benefit from this unfortunate episode," he said in a soft, gray voice. "Never let it be said that I let anger cloud my vision from opportunity."

Guerrand shook his head slowly, fearfully. "I don't understand."

Nuitari gave a patronizing roll of his shadowed eyes. "What I'm saying is, cast your little spell to change my moon to two dimensions-temporarily, that is," he said. "I will even advise you, free of obligation, that you would be better served to rearrange the final two symbols. Doing so will lengthen the duration of the dimensional change, to last until the rising of the sun."

"That's it?" Guerrand asked, incredulous. "You're going to let me return to Thonvil and finish the spell?"

The god looked amused. "Nothing is ever that easy, mage of the Red Robes."

Guerrand jumped as if electrically shocked when Nuitari reached out with black, manicured nails and gently fingered the cloth of his red robe. "I ask only one thing: Remember this favor I have granted you."

Every muscle in Guerrand's body froze. He played the god's words through his mind again in disbelief, then shifted just one eye up to Nuitari's pale face. "Are you asking me to change…?"

"I'm asking you nothing," interrupted the god of dark magic. "I have no use for another minor supplicant at this moment. Later?" Nuitari shrugged. "Who can say? For now, simply remember the favor I have granted you. I will."

Guerrand bowed his head and said nothing. When he looked up, for a brief moment the features of Rannoch, the black wizard who haunted his dreams, played across the face of the god of dark magic. Guerrand blinked in disbelief and the illusion was gone, some trick of his overtaxed mind, he supposed.

Nuitari's laughter rang in Guerrand's ears as the glass floor sagged beneath his feet. There was a loud ping! as if a large bubble had burst, and then Guerrand dropped into the darkness of the heavens. He plummeted head over heels, past bright Solinari, past the red glow of Lunitari, past a thousand unnamed stars. He didn't know whether he would live or die, whether Nuitari had already reneged on their unspoken deal, only that he was falling.

And then, in the blink of an eye, he stopped. Like a teleport spell, one moment he was tumbling through space, and the next he stood in the exact place and position, arm gestures and all, as before he'd been thrust into the heavens by Nuitari. The moment had held.

"Guerrand? Uncle Rand!" The last was a bark from Bram's mouth.

The mage's vision finally sighted the face of his nephew. Guerrand's gaze traveled to his sister lying beneath the lone tree, looking wan and hopeless in the moment before her death, and he well and truly came back from wherever he had been.

Except in one regard. Guerrand silenced Bram with a stinging glance. He snatched up one last piece of parchment, hastily scrawled the rearrangement of the final two symbols he had placed upon the black moon, and sent Zagarus skyward one more time.

Guerrand waited for some earth-shattering, cosmos- shifting sign. But white Solinari and red Lunitari drifted without concern across the dusky sky as before. There could be no question that the sun had set, for no last orangy beams stretched eastward from the west. Guerrand refused to look at Kirah, to even turn his head slightly to see if she still moved. Neither he, nor Bram, nor Kirah seemed to draw breath. A few dead leaves skipped over the cobbles in the breeze, and still the three waited, as still as statues, for the end to come or the beginning to start.

Bram blinked in wonder at the sky. 'The night seems brighter than usual, as if daylight's wick has been turned down just one notch."

"Nuitari's black light," Guerrand began to explain, his voice thin but growing, "usually mutes the intensity of Solinari and Lunitari's rays. Without it, the moonlight is much brighter."

"And that's not all," Bram fairly shouted. "Look, near the crown constellation!"

Guerrand scanned the sky looking for the familiar crown-and-veil arrangement of stars. It was obscured, not by clouds or night mist but by dark, fleeting shapes. The sky seemed suddenly crowded with them in the area where the crown of stars usually twinkled. Guerrand saw nothing obscuring the nearby constellations: the graceful double ellipses of Mishakal and the massive bison zodiacal symbol of Kiri-Jolith were clear. To the far side of the bison, where the constellations should have portrayed a broken scale and a dragon's skull, the stars were again obscured by darting bits of darkness.

"What does it mean?" Bram wondered aloud, turning in a circle to view the odd sky.

"I can only guess," Guerrand replied. "Those constellations that are obscured tonight must usually reflect the light of evil Nuitari, now absent. It is a good sign, I think."

Guerrand's musing was cut short when Kirah's snakes suddenly became agitated. Her limbs thrashed wildly beyond her control, upsetting the blanket she had insisted upon covering herself with out of an uncharacteristic sense of vanity.

At first Guerrand and Bram were worried that the fighting was some new manifestation of the disease, until they noticed that the snakes appeared to be in great pain. Then the creatures began to attack and bite

each other, those conjoined on the same limb, as well as from one limb to the next. Kirah struggled in vain to get as far from her warring reptiles as possible. She had to settle for turning her head and squeezing her eyes shut, though she couldn't silence the sound of their violent hissing and thrashing. She began to scream, a long, low wail of pain that gave the snakes only a brief pause. Finally Kirah fell still, unconscious, either from shock or as an escape, or both.

Guerrand and Bram watched helplessly, both wondering if they should stop the snakes from killing each other, but not knowing how to go about it. Bram made a move toward the thrashing black creatures, but Guerrand stayed him by grasping his arm.

"For better or worse-for Kirah's sake-we've got to let the malady reverse itself," he said softly.

Then Bram emitted a gasp and pointed down the street. "Look, Guerrand-snakes!"

Guerrand followed Bram's pointing finger until he, too, saw them. Knots of thrashing snakes were clearly visible in the bright moonlight. They had emerged from their hiding places all around town and, like the snakes on Kirah's limbs, were fighting to the death in squirming knots. Bram picked his way carefully down the street to the village green. When he returned, he reported that hundreds of snakes were attacking each other all over the town, seemingly driven mad by the light.

The last snake on Kirah's body, vibrant colors now dull, died of its wounds just before sunrise. Kirah was unconscious until that very moment, when her eyes flew open wide, hopeful, and instantly alert. As the first rays of the fourth day's sun cut across her face, the lifeless snakes simply slipped away with the last traces of moonlight, replaced with fully formed arms and legs the pinkish hue of a newborn babe.

Face shining with joy, Kirah planted her new legs beneath her with the awkward gait of a colt. Bram stumbled forward to help his aunt, while Guerrand stood back and watched with joyous amusement, recalling Kirah's first toddling steps as a child. They could hear the jubilant shouts that began ringing all over the village that, just yesterday, had been as silent as the tomb it had become.

Kirah's pale eyes welled up as she looked at her brother. "I'm sorry I doubted you, Rand. Ever."

Guerrand sank to his knees with relief at the sound of her voice. He struggled to control the flood of emotions coursing through him, to find something uplifting to say, but no clear thought would settle upon his lips. His nephew squeezed his shoulder encouragingly.

The mage felt utterly empty of magic, could sense the void where his power should be. He was certain it would take some time before it returned, at least a night's sleep. What he had done to turn the moon had drained more from him than any act of magic ever had. Yet, seeing his sister restored, hearing the villagers' happy shouts, Guerrand thought all the strain had been worth it.

The mage found himself raising his eyes to the heavens in silent tribute. But the smile upon his face froze, and his heart skipped a beat. Clear to his view for the first time, next to the white and pink bones of Solinari and Lunitari in the lavender morning sky, was the darker shape of Nuitari.

The moon no decent person could see.